One Man's Ed
by Dustbunny3
Summary: [One-shot][Gen] Preseries. Eddy rescues his big brother's shirt from the trash for his own.
A/N: Man, I suck at crossposting... Anyway! I wrote this last year for Eddy Appreciation Week on Tumblr. I've had the headcanon for a while that Eddy's shirt is a hand-me-down from Bro and decided to do something with that. Enjoy!

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His parents tried to throw it away when they cleaned out the attic, but Eddy saved it when they weren't looking. It was his big brother's shirt, after all, he couldn't let it end up as trash. He had never seen his brother wearing it, but he remembered it from the picture in the book his mommy showed him. He even pulled the book off the shelf and made sure (Bro would sure be proud he remembered to check the product).

Seeing it in the book made him feel so happy and so proud that he had to put it on right there. He pulled and yanked at the stiff new jeans and shirt his mommy had dressed him in that morning. His shirt lost a button, but that was okay. His mommy bought him lots of shirts like this and anyway his brother's shirt was way more important.

All his brother's stuff was more important than his stuff was, of course. His big brother said so, and what Bro says is what goes.

He had to kick to make the pants come all the way off, but Bro's shirt was almost as big as him, so why wear them? Besides, Bro didn't like his clothes, Eddy didn't think. Bro would make mean faces at them, yank on them and make marks. He sometimes would make mean faces and yank on Eddy, too, and sometimes he left marks. But! If Eddy wore his brother's clothes instead, then his brother wouldn't have to do that, right? He didn't like Eddy's clothes, but he liked his own, so he would like Eddy more if Eddy wore Bro's clothes. Bro was always happier with Eddy when he was more like Bro and did what he said.

The first time he tried to put on the shirt, it was backwards. He grumbled some words he knew from Bro that Mommy and Daddy didn't like to hear him say and pulled it off again. It turned inside-out when he did, but he knew how to fix that. When he tried again, he almost put his head in both sleeves before he found the neck and fell on his butt. But then he did find the neck, and his head slipped through just like it was already his shirt. It was hard to get his hands through the sleeves, they were so floppy on him, but then there were his hands right in front of his face. He stood up and his brother's shirt– his shirt now, since he saved it– fell all the way to the floor. It was sort of like a dress, but that was okay since it was a shirt. Anyway, he liked it, kinda.

Giggling at how clever he was to have saved the shirt and changed into it all by himself, he toddled off toward the kitchen to look at himself in the oven door. His mommy always showed him inside the oven when she cooked, but he had found out all by himself that he could look at himself in the glass like it was a mirror. She had said he was very smart, but his brother said it wasn't a smart thing to notice. That was because Bro was much smarter than Mommy; Bro had even told him so. Even if it wasn't smart, it was useful, since there were no real mirrors he could see by himself.

His parents were in the kitchen. He tried to creep by them without them seeing, but they saw anyway. They weren't happy to see him wear Bro's shirt. His mommy scooped him up into her big arms and he knew they would take the shirt away and throw it in the trash if he didn't do something. So, when Mommy cradled him in one arm and tried to tug the shirt off with the other, he screamed.

Mommy was so surprised she almost dropped him; that was when he got the idea to struggle. If his mommy was busy trying not to drop him, she couldn't take the shirt away. So he wiggled and squirmed and threw himself against her hold, kicking his legs and waving his arms. The whole time his mommy told him to stop, to calm down, and his daddy yelled about his brother, but Eddy cried and screamed and didn't listen to anything either of them said. This was his brother's shirt and now it was going to be Eddy's shirt.

It felt like a long time before his mommy yelled, "Okay! Alright! You can wear the shirt if you want! Just, please–"

She didn't have to say please for anything then, though, because Eddy was finished crying and fighting if she was finished trying to take his shirt away. He grabbed the front of her dress and buried his face against her chest. He was breathing hard from making so much noise and he made sure that he made lots of sniffling sounds. Bro didn't like it when Eddy sniffled, but he said it worked good on suckers for now. His mommy was breathing sort of hard, too, and she was holding him close and rubbing his back. More important, she was still saying he could keep the shirt, in the soft voice she used to help him sleep.

Eddy's daddy still wasn't happy. He came closer, but Eddy screamed when he reached a hand out and his mommy turned her back on his daddy super fast and snapped at him. Eddy stopped screaming right away and made a sobbing sound to add to his sniffles. It gave him hiccups, but he thought maybe that made him sound even sadder.

"It's my shirt," Eddy said, his voice all wavering from his heavy breathing and his hiccups. "I wanna be like Bro."

Daddy got even angrier real fast, but Mommy shushed him just as fast, cuddling Eddy closer and kissing the top of his head.

"Honestly, dear," she said to his daddy, "it's just a shirt."


End file.
